How many is too many?
by Daria234
Summary: Sam's first day of college and he's deciding which classes to keep and drop. He wants to look forward to his new life but keeps thinking about Dean and hunting and his father. He finds it very annoying.


Written for comment_fic on livejournal

Prompt was for S, first day of college

Sam had a plan.

He had signed up for 10 courses. But of course he could only take four or five. But he had surreptitiously forged an overenroll form and gotten it past the tech at the enrollment center.

So he would go to all of them the first day. And only then would he actually decide on a schedule. And okay, it would be a long first day. But hunting had taught him that there's nothing wrong with making sure you have a backup. Or five. Or six.

First up was Computer Literacy. Sam had never touched a computer - John was a pen and paper guy. Sam would have loved to have dropped this and catch an extra hour of sleep. But when on the first day they learned to use a search engine, and had a few minutes to search on a topic of their choice, Sam knew that he would need to keep the class. Everyone needed to know computers, Sam could see. In 5 minutes he could find thousands of sources of information about demon possession. He wasn't sure why he picked that topic, but he knew it probably had to do with his dad's singleminded upbringing. Or maybe that one time Dean mentioned there were hardly any good books on the topic. Either way, Sam would soon have lots more non-hunting interests that he could look up.

Second was Physical Education 115G: Kickboxing. Sam took one look at the instructor's demonstration of a "good, clean shot" and quietly left. He decided that college campuses weren't the most...martial of places to learn that kind of stuff.

Next was Latin. He figured his experience would give him an advantage. Besides, the pre-law advisor said Latin was a good choice. A look at a declension chart caused a consternated look on Sam's face, thinking of all he would have to remember, but overall, it looked okay.

Then political philosophy. A monotone voice in front of a huge lecture hall, saying that there was no such thing as power, that power is just an illusion. Then Sam trying not to snore. Yeah, that's be a drop.

After a granola bar lunch shoved down while running to the art building, it was Introduction to Painting. Sam had never gotten to take an art class, but Dean had always said his crayon drawings were better than the other kids'.

Turns out Dean lied. The 'Introduction to Painting' was full of students who had been painting seriously for years. Of course they probably had paints. And houses to put their paints in. And schools with art classes that they could go to for more than a few weeks. Sam reflected on this, then reminded himself that only a egomaniac or a jerk would be upset about his lack of artistic talent on his first day of college. He was in college!

Cheered by this, Sam went to the next class. Introduction to Mechanical Engineering. For some reason, he thought it would be like when Uncle Bobby would teach them to rig weapons out of everyday household items. Instead, it was a lot of equations. With vectors. Sam was glad that pre-law studies didn't exactly demand a lot of science.

Then comparative mythology. Within 10 minutes, Sam could see that this class would cover plenty of things that he had fought, or that his family had. He didn't come all the way to California for more of this crap. Especially not to read thousand-line lamentations for heroes who died fighting these monsters. He didn't want to take this class.

But... he needed to build up literature credits, and this was one of the few classes with no prereqs. So although he crossed off the course from his schedule a few minutes in, by the end of class, he had erased his scribbles. He would keep the class.

But not because it would be useful for hunting. Just the opposite. He wasn't a hunter any more, so demons and spirits shouldn't have any effect on whether he took a class, so he wasn't about to drop a perfectly good English credit because it reminded of something that was no longer important to him. Hunting had nothing to do with anything any more.

Then off to the media studies building. For the film course on "Embodying Eroticism in New Wave Cinema." Yeah, he was keeping this class. Didn't matter he didn't understand half the words the prof used (hegemony? meez in seen? Lacanian?). Didn't matter that the films were in black and white, didn't even matter that they were in French. He was getting college credit for watching porn. Not that he really liked porn. And not that old French porn would be his first choice. But he would probably see Dean again. And Dean would say that he didn't learn anything important at Stanford. And then he would get to see the look on Dean's face when he said he took a class on porn. And he got to watch it in a room full of people, mostly girls, and with the lights on. Awesome.

And then it was off to American History. Where the professor lowered a big screen and showed the class a computer model of the action at several Civil War Battles. And then he asked if there were any questions, and Sam, for some idiotic reason, raised his hand. To ask about some general's strategy. And what he was thinking going in like that when he clearly had the disadvantage. And arguing with professor when it was clear that the guy had no idea what it was like to have to dodge something when you don't have cover.

And then realizing that the whole class was staring at him like he was a complete freak.

Yeah. Dropping history.

And then Rhetoric class. Sam was exhausted. He was starting to think that 4 classes was plenty, and only about a quarter of freshman tried to take 5 classes in Fall. And sure, Rhetoric was required by Pre-Law but he was having some pretty big doubts about going ot law school anyway. Sure Dean and John acted like he was the smart one, and a few teachers had encouraged him, but what if Sam was just really a country boy idiot who would never fit in? What if it was too hard to get in? And why was he thinking about them anyway?

But was he fooling himself thinking he could ever be one of those lawyer guys, the kind who wear suits to work and have nice houses and happy families and normal lives?  
And politics and history class were a bust. Aren't lawyers supposed to love that stuff?

And damn, was he tired. What was he thinking, ten classes?

He stood up and was about to walk out and just make a run for his dorm bed, but then the Rhetoric professor came in. She said to the class, "For countless millennia, we fought. We fought other animals, sure. But a lot of the time we fought each other. And we would use teeth and limbs and later we would use sticks and stones. But then something very special happened. We invented language. And then there was a different way to fight. We could triumph over our enemies, and _we could lead our clan to victory_, but for once not have blood on our hands or entrails on our floor. And this, class, was the invention of argument."

Sam sat back down. The past few days had been nothing but argument, though there actually had been a little bit of hand and foot involved. But as he thought about his life, and how rarely he had victories that he was truly happy to be a part of, he decided to stay. Five classes sounded just about right.


End file.
